A guard in a tower at Camp Delta 1 in the Guantánamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. Photograph: Richard Ross/AP

People need to understand that detainees at Guantánamo Bay are "bad people", the US vice president, Dick Cheney, will say in an interview to be broadcast tonight as pressure grows for the detention centre to close.

Several politicians on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, have recently called for the facility to close and at least two committees are preparing to open hearings about it.

Pressure has been increasing on the Bush administration over allegations of torture and abuse of detainees at Guantánamo, with more allegations of abuse in yesterday's edition of Time magazine.

Time reported that a Saudi al-Qaida suspect, Mohamed al-Kahtani, had water dripped on his head, was forced to bark like a dog, and kept awake by the music of Christina Aguilera, according to extracts of prison logs.

However, in an interview recorded on Friday and due to be broadcast tonight on the Fox News channel, Mr Cheney defended the detention of hundreds of terror suspects at the camp.

"The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantánamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the al-Qaida network."

He said that President George Bush was, however, "exploring all alternatives" for detaining the 540 prisoners, some of whom have been held for more than three years without charge. "We've already screened the detainees there and released a number, sent them back to their home countries ... but what's left is hard core."

Earlier this month, former president Jimmy Carter said Guantánamo should close to signal that the US cared about human rights.

Senator Chuck Hagel, from Nebraska, one of a group of Republicans who have called for Guantánamo to close, said yesterday that the US was "losing the image war around the world".

"We do need some kind of a facility to hold these people. But this can't be indefinite. This can't be a situation where we hold them forever and ever and ever until they die of old age," Mr Hagel told CNN.

Senator Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican, said on Friday that Guantánamo has "become an icon for bad stories and at some point you wonder the cost-benefit ratio".

In a statement yesterday, the US defence department said it "does not wish to hold detainees longer than necessary, and effective processes are in place to regularly review the status of enemy combatants".

The Senate judiciary committee plans a hearing on Guantánamo on Wednesday and the panel's senior Democrat, Senator Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, said there was a "legal black hole" at the prison. "We want other countries to adhere to the rule of law. And in Guantánamo, we are not," he said.

However the chairman of the house of representatives' armed services committee, insisted detainees had not been abused in Guantánamo. "We treat these people very well," Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, told Fox News yesterday. "We supply every one of them with the Qur'an. We supply them with oil. We supply them with prayer beads. Five times a day on the prison system, we do the call to prayer with arrows pointing in the direction of Mecca and assist them in their prayer ritual."

The Time magazine report drew on an 84-page document detailing the interrogation at Guantánamo of Mr Kahtani, who was captured during the war in Afghanistan.

He has been linked by US investigators to the September 11 attacks in 2001. US investigators have said he tried to enter the US in August 2001, but was turned away by an immigration agent at the Orlando, Florida, airport. Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 hijackers, was in the airport at the same time, officials have said.

Military intelligence officials at Guantánamo received permission to use intensive interrogation techniques on two prisoners, including Mr Kahtani, US officials have said.

Time said interrogators used such techniques as dripping water on Mr Kahtani's head; strip-searching him and making him stand nude; and depriving him of sleep. At one point, after receiving fluid intravenously for dehydration, Mr Kahtani was told to urinate in his pants by interrogators who refused his request to use the bathroom so they could continue with their questioning.

The US defence department would not comment on the specific allegations about Mr Kahtani. However, it said it was committed to the "unequivocal standard of humane treatment for all detainees, and Kahtani's interrogation plan was guided by that strict standard" in a " controlled environment, with active supervision and oversight".

In a 1,200 word response to the Time story, the department said the interrogation "was guided by a very detailed plan and conducted by trained professionals motivated by a desire to gain actionable intelligence, to include information that might prevent additional attacks on America".

Mr Kahtani had provided valuable information on the logistics of the September 11 attacks and how al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden evaded capture by US forces in Afghanistan, the department said.

The statement concluded by saying the interrogation was to be investigated.